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Category Archives: Mystery

Through what can only be viewed as a quirk of fate, I found myself in a situation where there were only two books on my desk. Setting aside the fact that someone cleaned my personal space without my express permission – I am now unable to find anything – I was in a quandary. It was time to select my next review vict— book. Choices? A book called Viva Las Bad Boys! versus a book called Scoop.

For professional as well as personal reasons, I went with the latter book.

The best writers are not, necessarily, those with the best ideas; they’re they ones with the best execution. Richard Russo’s Empire Falls is simply a re-telling of Great Expectations. Russo certainly isn’t the only one to undertake that very common idea, and yet there is fine-spun brilliance in every line of Empire Falls and that is why the book won the Pulitzer. Jennifer Crusie’s Welcome to Temptation is the story of a big city girl from the wrong side of the tracks and a small town boy whose family runs the town. Romance has seen that setup time and again, yet Crusie slipped magic and subtext into the tale and a finer poor girl/rich boy story cannot be found. The ideas aren’t worth much, but the achievements are priceless
Michelle Rowen’s sophomore effort, Angel with Attitude, sounds like a great idea: the heroine, Valerie Grace is an angel, and the hero, Nathaniel, is a demon. It stacks up to be the ultimate good girl/bad boy story: she’s just wants to get back to heaven and he wants to coax her to hell. This is delicious. What common ground could such a couple have? How far will she fall? Can he be redeemed? The answers don’t really matter. It is how those answers unfold that prove whether the setup succeeds or fails. Like all ideas, Angel with Attitude comes down to the execution.

HelenKay: Books centered on kidnapped children know no genre boundaries. Missing and endangered children are as plentiful in fiction as they are in life. Mysteries and thrillers are logical places to find these fictional children in peril. Romantic suspense and literary fiction often provide fertile ground for this plot as well. While some books like Lovely Bones explore this subject from a fresh angle, many others travel the same path. This relative sameness drains some of the emotion from the suspense aspect of the read. Kate Pepper avoids the read-this-all-before feel in her book One Cold Night by focusing less on the kidnapping than on the desperation and uncertainty of those left behind. The result is a full and engaging exploration of loss, love, deceit and faith.

HelenKay: Loving a new author can be a dangerous thing. You hear about a book, take a risk and buy a hardcover by an unknown, enjoy the debut, recommend the book to everyone you know and sit to wait not-so-patiently for the next in the series to arrive in the bookstores. When that second book arrives, you’re excited and a bit apprehensive. The worry? Book #2 may not live up to Book #1. The release of Passion, Betrayal And Killer Highlights carried with it that level of excitement and that twinge of danger. It is the follow-up and second in a series by new author Kyra Davis. Her first, Sex, Murder And A Double Latte, was one of those books. One hyped and highlighted in magazines and Big Newspaper reviews. Davis’ first book hit the shelves with a significant amount of fanfare and excitement. Passion, Betrayal And Killer Highlights enjoyed a quieter release but one still highly anticipated. The good news is that Davis’ second book does not disappoint.

HelenKay: Take a successful young woman then steal her money, her fiancee, her career and her life, and what do you have? Heather Wells – former popstar, current Assistant Residence Hall Director and the heroine of Size 12 Is Not Fat, the first book in a new mystery series by Meg Cabot.